Golfing provides countless hours of exercise and enjoyment to diverse individuals the world over; however, this source of entertainment and competition may be quite frustrating to an individual golfer who fails to hit golf balls in a consistent, controlled manner. Part of the difficulty in hitting a golf ball consistently results from the complex movements required of the golfer to bring a golf club head into contact with the ball with desired force and direction.
In conventional practice, before swinging the club to strike the ball, a golfer addresses the ball by standing comfortably with weight substantially evenly distributed on both feet and with the golf club head proximate the ball. During the golf swing, the line-of-sight of the golfer remains fixed on the ball. The club head is smoothly retracted a predetermined distance as weight is shifted to the back foot, advantageously achieving a maximum weight shift at or near the top of the backswing. As the club is swung forward, substantially tracing the contour of the backswing, weight is returned to the front foot so that at the moment of impact, body position is substantially similar to that of the address position. After impact, weight is further shifted to the front foot and the club follows through, continuing in a generally arcuate path over the golfer's shoulder. A primary mechanism for achieving proper weight shift is through controlled hip rotation.
Clearly, club selection and swing parameters, such as amount of retraction and club speed, are determined based on a variety of factors, including location and orientation of the ball relative to the pin, for example. One guideline, however, which remains generally applicable is that the position and orientation of the golfer's body at the time of impact should be substantially similar to that at the time the ball is initially addressed. Resuming the address position at impact is often quite challenging and generally becomes increasingly more difficult the greater the backswing, due to the complex coordinated motion required of the golfer's body.
There exist devices which are commercially available in the marketplace or are otherwise known which purport to improve a golfer's performance through control of the swing. Such devices range from costly systems including pressure sensitive pads, which quantify the amount of weight shift during a swing, to complex harnesses worn by or structures surrounding the golfer which constrain body and/or club motion. While such devices may afford some benefit to some golfers, these devices are generally costly, complex and may interfere with the natural motion of the body. Further, many such devices are restricted to practice settings, being altogether inapplicable or impractical for use on the golf course during play. Techniques and motions learned through the use of such devices may translate poorly to an unencumbered play setting, for example, due to an acquired reliance on physical restraints, however subtle.